If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Back spin on a paintball

I am wondering if it would be practical to get a backspin effect (like you would get with a Tippman flatline or a BT apex) by sticking a short piece of foam tape inside the tip of your barrel? It would probably take some time to "dial in" how much tape to use and where to put it. It would also likely be dependant on the size paintball you use and the length of the barrel , and about a billion other factors. It is just an idea that has been tripping around in my head for a couple of weeks now and would like some opinions before I waste a case of paint testing somthing that could turn out to be a waste of time.

I am wondering if it would be practical to get a backspin effect (like you would get with a Tippman flatline or a BT apex) by sticking a short piece of foam tape inside the tip of your barrel? It would probably take some time to "dial in" how much tape to use and where to put it. It would also likely be dependant on the size paintball you use and the length of the barrel , and about a billion other factors. It is just an idea that has been tripping around in my head for a couple of weeks now and would like some opinions before I waste a case of paint testing somthing that could turn out to be a waste of time.

It can work, but you'll likely need to mill where you put it on the end of your barrel, and probably wouldn't be worth it.

it can work, and i beleive the tap thing has been tried before... with many broken balls and hours to find a combo that worked.

essentially its Galactic Z body from a different perspective. The original z-body had a nubbin in the body which could be dialed down to reach the desired effect. Large bore barrel was a much needed element.

The nubbin dialed down like a ramp so it was semi easy on the paintballs. Where as a peice of foam tape may provide a impeding perpendicular blockage which could encourage ball breaks.

Weighing the time/effort/resources/frustration it may be more worthwhile to pick up an old galactic z-body and a lapco bigshot (.697?) barrel... then you can dial in your spin. We have shot around cover/corners and received some nice decent accurate distance with ours...

If you enjoy the tinkering aspect.. more power to ya and as long as your having fun.. coolio;
it could be an interesting study.

I was wondering the same thing the other day, except I was considering using a thin strip of gaffer's tape along the inside top of the barrel. Might work, might not. Probably throw your consistency to crap if you didn't do it just right, though.

Even if you had the means to rip up a few barrels, try a few materials and dial in the performance, imagine the consequence of a ball break? Paint soaks into you tape, foam, whatever; your day now sucks.

Having owned a flatlined 98 custom a while back, I have this to add:
It worked well test firing, impressing friends before a game, but when actually playing, balls would hook wildly, hitting everything but your opponent.

If you're on AO, you know enough to have a consistent marker, so stop looking for that extra edge because next thing you know, you are going to be talking about rifling barrels, low pressure being better than high pressure, open bolt being better than closed bolt, and getting shot out every game because you didn't take time to improve your playing.

People seem to forget that backspin systems were popular for a time in the mid 90s.

CooperT, for example, had backspin systems for all the popular guns (ie Cockers, Spyders, VMs, etc) by using a custom bolt. Automags had the GalaticZ system.

But they all fell out of favor because of the basic problem inherent to all backspin system:
Paint sensitive.

Then years later, Tippmann "re-discovered" them, and put out the flatline, and Apex (via Ben). Same problems- Paint sensitive.

In order for it to work, you need a very specific size of paint, which causes problems at FPO events, and fields. Likewise, because of seem orientation, accuracy is decreased, meaning EFFECTIVE range is decreased, even though actual maximum range might be increased.

In the end, its lots and lots of work for a novelty that has very little use.

I thought of something similar a while back, why not sandblast the inside of the top half of a barrel? It's something that i have been thinking about. I know it would never work but still fun to think of the possibilities in a perfect situation without things like paint to barrel match and the amount of spin.

On a related tangent: why are adjustable "hop-ups" used so frequently in airsoft but mostly regarded as a useless gimmick in paintball? Presumably shot precision is just as important to airsoft players as to paintballers - is the magnus effect more reliable when applied to their projectiles rather than ours, was it marketed more successfully to airsofters, or what?

And because the BB's are HARD they can get pressed against without breaking... PLUS they are DRY and not coated in a thin film of oil to keep em from getting to dried out and since they are solid you don't have to worry about the FILL not spinning with the shell... and vice versa.

On a related tangent: why are adjustable "hop-ups" used so frequently in airsoft but mostly regarded as a useless gimmick in paintball?

The short answer is seams, and OD.

The magnus itself is generated largely by the turbulence created from the seam has it travels through the air. Unfortunetly, the seam orientation effects how much turbulence can be created.

And you can control the seam orientation. You can see this when using a CooperT, or Flatline by dropping the paintballs into the the breech with the seam axis in different positions. You end up with the ball having different trajectories.

Plus, the orientation itself will change as the ball travels, and has a very random effect on its trajectory. The end result is accuracy is diminished. That simple fact really cripples the backspin systems, since they try to market them as "sniper tools", when in fact they shorten your effective range.

Airsoft does not have that problem as the airsoft pallets are fairly uniform, combined with a smaller surface area. The amount of magnus is thus more consistent.

The other paintball problem is "OD". There is no standard size "68" paintball. Sizes range from .680 to .694. Barrels likewise also vary even to a greater degree. This is a problem since backspin systems require a VERY SPECIFIC OD/ID variance. Generally, you need the barrel to be .04 larger then the ball. So small and it will effect the spin speed, and create breaks. TOo large, and effeciency is unacceptable.

Airsoft, though, is very standardized, and is not an issue.

I do actually love backspin systems though, despite what I said above. Beyond the obvious problems: Terrible accuracy, and breaks paint- It does have one very useful benefit: Flat trajectory. If I'm ever playing any sorta of "village" or "urban" fields. The flat trajectory allows me to shoot through a series of windows, or holes that no other player can shoot back from.

Back in the day (90-91) people used to use a little nail polish right at the end of the barrel to impart spin to the ball as it left the barrel. One of the markers of choice during that era was of course the Line SI Bushmaster and if you recall the barrel system would let you orient your barrel anywhere thru 360 degrees. So, you could manipulate your barrel during a game orient that spin for the desired effect, back spin, right/left, etc..

Even on some barrels of the day there was a "grain" within the barrel that would influence the flight of the ball. That is, in my opinion why brass has a following, that surface can be manipulated and polished much easier than others materials.

The internal shape of barrels has always been one of my favorite debates. Today's barrels seem to be mere cylendars and if they are multiple peice barrels they are just cylendars of multiple ID's, there is no real contoured shape to the barrel interior. The shape that I've envisioned as working best would be; The back of the barrel to be large to allow the ball to meet the bore. From the large back the ID would constrict down to a control bore, this would be the tightest portion of the barrel intended to let the ball accelerate under a tight directional control. The next section of the barrel would be un-ported but the ID would be slightly increasing to start to end, releasing the control pressure on the ball and letting it almost float freely in the barrel by the end of the section. The final section of the barrel would be ported and have almost no remaining contact with the ball, the sole purpose of this section would be to let the ball transition from the moving air mass in side the barrel into the still air mass in front the barrel so that the ball's shape would not distort causing the ball's flight path to deviate.

The internal shape of barrels has always been one of my favorite debates. Today's barrels seem to be mere cylendars and if they are multiple peice barrels they are just cylendars of multiple ID's, there is no real contoured shape to the barrel interior. The shape that I've envisioned as working best would be; The back of the barrel to be large to allow the ball to meet the bore. From the large back the ID would constrict down to a control bore, this would be the tightest portion of the barrel intended to let the ball accelerate under a tight directional control. The next section of the barrel would be un-ported but the ID would be slightly increasing to start to end, releasing the control pressure on the ball and letting it almost float freely in the barrel by the end of the section. The final section of the barrel would be ported and have almost no remaining contact with the ball, the sole purpose of this section would be to let the ball transition from the moving air mass in side the barrel into the still air mass in front the barrel so that the ball's shape would not distort causing the ball's flight path to deviate.

" The gun was shooting with air at 850 psi, delivered as hard and fast to the ball as is possible. It chrono'd at 381fps. The video was filmed at 20X shutter speed, and 2000 frames per second. You can clearly see that the ball does not deform in any way."

Ah, makes sense. Easier to mold plastic to a consistent diameter than it is to simultaneously cut, seal and fill a gelatin capsule to a specific OD.

Originally Posted by HP_Lovecraft

I do actually love backspin systems though, despite what I said above. Beyond the obvious problems: Terrible accuracy, and breaks paint- It does have one very useful benefit: Flat trajectory. If I'm ever playing any sorta of "village" or "urban" fields. The flat trajectory allows me to shoot through a series of windows, or holes that no other player can shoot back from.

Too true. Back when I had my Flatline, I was in the middle of a scenario game when it got finicky on me. For some reason the balls would come out, dive, climb and dive again. Pretty cool swoopy motion to watch, but almost useless for hitting anyone. I was about to walk off so I could calibrate it, but then I found the perfect use - a heavily wooded hill with a stone wall on the top and some of the other team hiding behind it. Everyone was arcing fire into the trees and balls would break before they got halfway to their targets. Well, I started walking around and taking test shots before I got the range just right, but then all my shots swooped right under the tree branches, raced up the hill and dove down over the wall. I must have taken out about half a dozen of them before they fell back. Complete fluke so it's a hard one to take credit for, but my nearby teammates were laughing pretty damn hard when the figured out what I was doing.

Jade - re-read my post especially the part just before you quoted in bold, i.e. "in side the barrel into the still air mass in front the barrel." I am clearly talking the ball leaving the barrel not when it's accelerating inside the barrel.

The vid does not really show anything, it's grainy and fuzzy and I don't think you can draw a conclusion about the ball deflecting during acceleration IN the barrel from what is shown.

my experience with backspin: I have an Apex tip on my mag and it does make the balls travel farther. However, I have had an increase in paint not breaking on the person I'm shooting at. This has been consistent with my apex tip and my girlfriends flatline. I always use the same brand of paint, and while one batch of paint may be more brittle than other batches of the same make ... it really got me to wondering about the spin making the ball glance off the target rather than breaking properly.

I know have only recently started re-thinking this whole backspin thing. I think I may be taking my apex tip off.

Well, seems to me that the bouncing paint issue may be caused by the amount of deceleration the ball experiences over the longer trajectory.

I suppose that it's entirely possible that the backspin may also cause the ball to "pulsate" less while flying through the air, thereby weakening the shell less (comparatively) before hitting the target. This is unlikely, but a theory anyway.

I seem to remember someone saying a dot or 2 of fingernail polish could be used to give that "apex" kind of spin to the ball once it reached the end of the barrel.
I dont think tape or ball detents are a good idea just because of the paint breaking issue.
I do know that you can always remove or reapply the polish if you need to... so you dont wast a good barrel. Its a idea you can try and if it wont work you are not out to much time or money.

but your wife will think you are going to far when you start looking for it.
"Baby, can I cant find the polish remover."

simpler way just take nail polish (clear) and put it on the top of the inside of the barrel when screwed into gun
brush out towards the end of the barrel (btw only ablut 1/2 inch from end of polish)
It will create a backspin on the ball
i did this to my freak kit LOVE IT

Ideas like the "extra friction on upper surface", or "extra holes on lower surface" or extra large detents, etc.

Bob Long even released an exotic backspin barrel back in 1993 called the Longshot (unrelated to the modern longshot).

Everyone here also seems to forget the GalaticZ backspin system from the 90s. It used a skid-plate, like what is found on modern Airsoft guns. It does work, though it breaks lots of paint.

Its nice that this old school technology has become popular again with the Flatline, and Apex, but none of the problems associated with backspin systems has been resolved. As such, it still is not much more then a novelty item